Is there anything our North American Masters sailors can't do well? Great article in Sailing World about our very own Peter Seidenberg, written by Joe Berkeley with photos by Peter Hurley. One call does it all! See it here.

This will be the first time that sailors will compete for the Ian Bruce Memorial trophy. This will become the perpetual trophy for the Laser Canadian Masters National Championship. Be sure to get registered for the regatta which will be held at Beaconsfield YC June 17-19.

Congratulations to our own Peter Seidenberg on his win in the Great Grand Masters category.

The regatta took place in Roses, the venue of the 2007 Masters Worlds. Having sailed in that regatta then and remembered the dependable prevailing sea breezes of 10-15 knots and beautiful waves in that big bay, I grabbed the opportunity to return when it was announced that this year's European Masters Championship was going to be held there. 248 sailors showed up from 23 countries, including three others besides me from the US: Jacques Kerrest (Radial GGM), John-Bernard Duler (Radial GM), and Greg Bennett (Std. App). There were 19 Std. App's, 61 Std. M's, 31 Std. GM's, 22 Radial App's, 47 Radial M's, 29 Radial GM's, 37 Radial GGM's, and two 4.7's.

The regatta was scheduled to run over 5 days, Monday to Friday, with 2 races per day, 10 in total, with one discard. Standards and Radials sailed on separate trapezoid courses: the former at the entrance of the bay, the latter deeper in the bay, like it was done in 2007. There were two starts per race on each course: App's and GM's in start 1, and M's in start 2 on the Std. course; and App's and M's in start 1, and GM's, GGM's and 4.7's in start 2 on the Radial course.

A high-pressure weather system descended upon the area on Monday at the start of the regatta and stayed for the whole week, meaning glassy water surface in the morning and a weak to moderate sea breeze in the afternoon. The scheduled 12 o'clock start had to be postponed on shore every day by about two hours until the developing sea breeze had reached the required minimum speed of 5 mph. It usually increased to 10+ mph as the day went on. This meant that light-air and medium-air specialists found their preferred conditions every day.Thursday, however, was calm all day, and no racing was attempted.

The social part consisted of an opening ceremony on the recently restored ruins of the nearby Trinity Castell that overlooks the town and used to guard the harbor; and a mid-week ship excursion to a nearby beach resort for dinner.

The results are here, as well as a video of the action on and off the water. Next year's EM is rumored to be in Gothenburg, Sweden.